However, when we focus our devotion on Him and His Word, we will treat one another as brothers and sisters (see John 13:34-35). And these secondary issues are causing division in the Body of Christ. Some causes have begun to take a higher priority in the church and in individuals’ lives than Jesus. I would suggest that many causes will be best served when followers of Jesus return to their first love. As believers, we need, first and foremost, to focus on the Person of Christ. It’s not that causes are unimportant, but they are secondary. There are many important causes, but we must focus on the priority and the centrality of Christ. As believers, we need, first and foremost, to focus on the Person of Christ.” What does that look like? Allow me to summarize what I believe we must do by using an acronym to help us remember Who and what is most important-C.H.R.I.S.T.Ĭhrist, Not Causes “We must focus on the priority and the centrality of Christ. I believe that now is the time to be Christians who live like Christians so the church can do what God has promised and purposed it to do. I think it’s safe to say we have begun a new era and possibly launched the beginning of a new epoch. This global pandemic, in concert with the shifts of power globally massive economic challenges the surging impact of technology the decline of the nuclear family distrust of major institutions and the growing polarization around race and politics, has created the perfect storm for drastic change.

Think of major shifts like the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of Christianity or the Reformation. And about every 400 to 500 years, we enter a new epoch where drastic shifts alter the course of history forever. Those who study history tell us that about every hundred years we enter a new era, a major shift in how life works. Third, now is not the time to mourn the past, but to innovate, to dream, to lead, to be bold and to recognize that God is “shaking the world so that the things that can be shaken will be shaken and the things that cannot be shaken will remain” (Cf. First, we will never return to “normal.” Second, we can rebuild. It has brought with it big questions: What now, and what’s next? Where do we go from here? What things will never return? And even more important, what is God up to, and what is our part in this drastically changing world? COVID-19 is the greatest global disturbance that we have ever seen. We’re living in a world right now that’s different from any other time in our lives.

Chip ingram 2proapt